Remove the Shackles, and Dance
— Comment of DENG Xize’s Revival of Culture
罗立军（LUO Lijun）
【Author's Note: This paper is published in Frontiers of Philosophy in China
2011(4)，pp. 656-664, (China) Higher Education Press, (German) Springer Press
2011.】
Wenhua Fuxing Lun: Gonggong Ruxue de Jinlu 文化复兴论：公共儒学的进
路 (Revival of Culture: The Approach of Public Confucianism). By DENG Xize(邓
曦泽). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe(People’s Publishing House), 2009. Ұ56. pp. 447.
ISBN: 9787010083223
1. Introduction
Recently, I received Deng Xize’s work Revival of Culture: The Approach of Public
Confucianism. Coincidentally, I also read Mr. Xu Jialu’s paper “Remove the Shackles
and Dance: Chinese Philosophy Needs a Revolution” (Literature, History and
Philosophy, 2009, No.5). The former is a book of great length while the latter is terse
and forceful paper, but both refer to the same serious topic—cultural autonomy. Mr. Xu
Jialu praises the comparative philosophical vision held by scholars from A. C. Graham
to Roger Ames, and he looks forward to starting a revolution in Chinese Philosophy by
building up cross-cultural interpretation, which will bring about a free dialogue between
China and the Western world. Deng Xize(邓曦泽) uses a set of rigorous and systematic
methods in his analysis and rigorous critique, devising several solutions to the modern
question “what’s the use of the historical culture?” He proposes using the approach of
Public Confucianism, in order to build a common platform for dialogue between China
and the Western world. In comparison, Mr. Xu mainly stresses negation, while Deng
Xize emphasizes affirmation. The two both refer to the same major contemporary
issue—the cultural renaissance. It can be said that Deng Xize has not only removed the
chains, but also performed a magical dance. It is the negation and the affirmation here
that lets us enjoy the Chinese people’s pursuit of academic autonomy.
2. Remove the Shackles
Since the later years of Qing Dynasty the historical culture in China could not
respond to real life, because of the invasion from the Western world. So its value was
seriously doubted and negated, and the historical culture itself became a dead body
being dissected on the operating table (as Levinson calls it, “museumization”) and lost
its independent life. In order to revive the vitality of Chinese historical culture, scholars
have tried to introduce Western concepts to explore its modernity. Then Chinese
scholars were accustomed to explaining Chinese historical culture with Western terms,
which led to the problem of the shackles described by Mr. Xu Jialu. Similarly, Deng
Xize also observed and criticized this specialized mode of interpretation, which shows
that cultural autonomy is indeed a common problem concerned by Chinese people.
Deng Xize thought that the widely used interpretation method (using the Western
concepts to interpret Chinese classics) by Neo-Confucianists, the representatives of
modern classics, were entirely ineffective or even diametrically opposed to their original
intent. Without an independent explanation system (observing from the tradition itself)
as the basis, the interpretation of traditional Chinese classics by using Western concepts
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can neither help to understand the classical study of the ethical principles, nor can it
maintain the independence of the native culture. Moreover, it cannot help in introducing
Western culture into China.
In order to remove the shackles of using Western concepts to interpret Chinese
classics, Deng Xize reapproached cultural autonomy in two ways: First, he used
rigorous and systematic analytical methods. Second, he worked from the perspective of
the public communication to construct a solid basis for evaluating historical culture,
namely the renaissance of the culture, rather than discussing the specific value of the
historical culture directly. The former is the basic method, while the latter is the
fundamental issue.
Deng Xize said in the preface: “I can finally discuss the issue of ‘what's the use of
the historical culture’ by a more rigorous and systematic method”. It shows that he had a
strong methodological consciousness in dealing with cultural issues. Hence the
widely-used approach of logical analysis constitutes his methodological basis. In the
West, logical analysis is a basic method in the academic research (especially in the
contemporary Western academic research) and the conventional means of Western
academic activities as well. So it serves as the public platform for academic exchanges.
There was a similar method in ancient China, but it was not well-developed. In the
introduction to the book, Deng Xize emphasizes this approach more clearly, and
demonstrates that the method of using the Western concepts to interpret Chinese classics
is completely different (pp. 48–50). Using logical analysis and taking public
communication as the perspective, Deng Xize provides a new way to prove the value of
the historical culture, which can promote academic exchange between China and the
West.
Traditional Chinese learning can basically be classified into the Han school of
classical philology and the Song school of classical philology. Furthermore, there are
two schools; one dealing with classical learning based on earlier texts, and the other
focusing on classical learning based on contemporary texts in the Han school of
classical philology. The classical learning based on contemporary texts stresses direct
engagement with the world, responding to the contemporary issues and achieving the
Confucian ideal of kingliness in ruling the state harmoniously and peacefully. The
classical learning basing on earlier texts is more inclined to deal with things indirectly,
uses literary study method to explore the Dao (the Way) contained in the classics. The
Song school of classical philology directly answers a series of questions about life,
values, etc. raised by Buddhist philosophy, which greatly expanded the Confucian
theory of mind and tested the limits of the Confucian notion of sagacity. These research
methods proceeded each other historically one after another, rising at certain times and
declining in others with the change of the contemporary issues. These approaches were
passed down and continued to play an important role in modern China respectively.
Traditional academia responded little to foreign culture. But in modern times,
answering the new issues raised by foreign culture has become the fundamental task to
modern Chinese academics. As the result, traditional academia has evolved into a new
type of classical studies for modern times (as represented by modern
New-Confucianism), which aimed to break new ground in considering the nature of the
sage. Before the formation of classical studies in modern times, the idea that Chinese
traditional culture should be the ti 体 (substance) and the western learning the yong 用
(function), used to be very popular. So far, many people still respect and follow it. In
fact, the intension of the idea is vague, and the extension of it is too wide. Exploring
new aspects of the sage’s nature can be regarded as deepening and expanding the idea
that Chinese traditional culture should be the substance and the western learning the
function, which stresses abandoning the outdated and inappropriate things in the
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monarchical system of traditional Confucianism to make Confucianism functioning well
in modern society. The idea that the Chinese traditional culture is the substance and the
western learning the function, and the exploration of new aspects of the sage’s nature
both try to escape the native cultural system, in order to achieve the joining of Chinese
and Western culture. Thus, in this sense, I take the approaches by the Han and Song
schools as the effective means for self-interpretation within the native cultural system,
which is not related to exchanges between Chinese culture and the West.
In contrast, Deng Xize’s method of logical analysis, a new path, is a formal one.
On the one hand, he does not use Western concepts to interpret Chinese learning, in
order to avoid the fate of becoming the footnotes in Western learning and losing
subjectivity. On the other hand, he adopts approaches from the Song school who
focused on personal experience rather than logical argument. Before dealing with the
core issues of the Western and Chinese systems, Deng Xize probed into a series of basic
conceptual issues through this method. And the method is another effective mode for
research into ancient Chinese culture, which is helpful for clarifying the value of the
historical culture, and building a common platform for cultural exchange between China
and the West.
Cultural exchange should not be blind, but should give service to human existence.
Thus, it needs not only to be aware of the methodology, but also there is a need to make
clear the basic issues in cultural exchanges. Among them is the question “what is the use
of the historical culture in the end?” The earlier parts of Revival of Culture use rigorous
logical analysis, and take the basic structure and form of occurrence of human
existential activities and the four presumptions of public communication as the basis to
explain and draw conclusions about this issue. By solving the two key questions of
“how to construct meaning and value in life” and of “how to build effective public
communication,” Deng Xize solved the more basic question “what is the use of the
historical culture?” (p. 213).
For the first issue, Deng Xize puts forward two key claims: First, on the basis of
the form of occurrence of “Question-Answer–Action” in our daily routines, he treats an
event as a discourse process, “since an event occurs in the process of
‘Question-Answer-Action,’ the event is a discourse process, the doer is always speaking
when doing something (p. 67).” Second, culture can explain life. To wit:
The occurrence of culture is a discourse process, which is easy to understand
in the form of “Question-Answer-Action.” There is the form of
“Question-Answer-Action’ in people’s living activities, while people’s living
activities are indispensible to culture. So it must enter into people’s living activities,
and therefore take effect in the form of ‘Question-Answer-Action.’ In this sense, we
can say that culture is life, and life is culture. They two are united fundamentally,
and the difference lies in that they are named from different perspectives. However,
we can describe the relationship between culture and life more accurately, namely:
culture can explain life (p. 73).
If we can grasp these two key claims, it would be very easy for us to understand
how culture might construct the meaning and value of individual life. This is because
the interpretation that culture can explain life “is to construct the meaning of life, to
provide theoretical basis, value reliance and significance support for life” (pp. 73–74).
Culture functions as the source of thought, and life is the collection of things and the
process of discourse, which needs to go back constantly to the cultural source to inquire
and carry out the activities in terms of “Question-Answer-Action,” thereby giving
meaning to life. For the second question, Deng Xize started by analyzing the four
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presumptions in public communications. That is, people have desires; People must
exploit others to meet their desires; People have the capacity for self-controlling; People
have linguistic competence, so they can express their intentions and understand the
desires of others. Among them, “the fourth presumption has drawn the most attention,
because it is related to the understanding, value judgments, etc., in exchanges directly”
(p. 92). Speaking of understanding, it is inevitably related to the questions of how to
enhance mutual understanding and how to promote effective communication. Then how
to enhance mutual understanding? Deng Xize responds, “Let all sides in the exchanges
share the common living language as much as possible, and make the living language
express the life issues and methods as much as possible” (p. 96). At this time, the role of
historical culture in constructing effective public communications becomes clear, and
the core of Public Confucianism Approach also emerges. Namely, the basic functions,
both direct and indirect, of historical culture are due to it being the common source of
thought. The direct functions can form public values and build a public communication
platform, while the indirect functions can heighten ethical standards and enhance the
spiritual beliefs of the nation. Deng Xize said that his answer “was nothing but to
re-affirm, re-expose the original functions of historical culture” (p. 405). And once the
original functions of the historical culture were re-exposed, it means that we have cast
off the heavy chains of using Western concepts to interpret Chinese classics, so that we
can dance freely.
3. Dance
Based on the construction of the basic theory in the former part, Deng Xize focuses
on discussing the revival of the Chinese historical culture in the next part, “taking the
public Confucianist approach, exploring a new way for the traditional Chinese historical
culture to get out of the trouble, reconstructing the publicity of the Chinese historical
culture to achieve the cultural renaissance” (p.42). Related to the theoretical exploration
in the former chapter, the following chapter mainly discusses the following issues: First,
it explains the unification of the Qin and Han dynasties according to public
communication theory, including answering the questions of why the first emperor of
Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of the Western Han regulated thought, and why
Emperor Wu only adopted Confucianism to rule the nation, etc. (Chapter III). Next, the
author looks at the predicament of modern culture, and on the basis of the public
communication theory, comments on solutions put forward by politicians for coping
with the cultural difficulties and answers the question of cultural renaissance directly
(Chapter IV). Finally, the author explores the implementation of the cultural revival,
including the feasibility, the system support, the basic task and basic strategies, etc., of
the cultural revival (Chapter V).
Basing his work on five reasons (pp. 404–408), Deng Xize believes that his public
Confucian approach has gone beyond simply exploring new dimensions to sagacity.
First, there is no need to impose the terms of science and democracy, the standards of
Western culture, on the traditional historical culture. Second, cultural revival means that
Confucianism or the historical culture should now become an important common
thought source and public communication platform once again in our lives. Third, this
cultural renaissance can build a basic platform for people to choose and follow what is
right in cross-cultural exchange, so public Confucianism will fall neither into overall
Westernization, nor exclusionism. Fourth, we can get rid of the dependence on Western
concepts to interpret Chinese classics (“the A in Chinese classics is B in Western
culture”). Fifth, the question as to what can and cannot be solved becomes clear and
definite with public Confucianism.
The second point mentioned above is the positive answer to the problem of cultural
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renaissance. The answer is simple and plain—this cultural renaissance is nothing more
than the reaffirmation and reappearance of the intrinsic feature of Chinese historical
culture, i.e., “the cultural renaissance means what the historical culture has done in the
past, and what can it do as much as possible at present and in the future” (p.405). The
first point and the third point embody a concentrated reflection of the basic
characteristics of Deng Xize’s solution. I have summarized it as the doctrine of the
mean kept in its own limits without overstepping and not being closed. Here, “without
overstepping” means that he does not like the cultural conservatives who one-sidedly
exaggerate the function of the historical culture represented by Confucianism and look
forward to building castles in the sand based on this historical culture. Meanwhile, “not
being closed” refers to his demonstration that the cultural renaissance can build an
effective basic platform for people to choose and follow what is right in dealing with
foreign culture.
In addition, another important significance of Deng Xize’s cultural renaissance
program is to get rid of the political limitations on historical culture. Modernization in
China is not a naturally native process, but with the resistant modernization (or the
respondent modernization) forced by Western gunboats, national force played the most
important role in the integration of social resources to achieve the revitalization. This
resulted in the development of modern academic activities always being driven by
politics, and the effectiveness of the academy being evaluated by the political forces.
Therefore, there has been a political direction in the trend of modern
New-Confucianism and even in contemporary philology toward the traditional historical
culture represented by Confucianism. People believed that if they did not do things this
way, it would be difficult for Confucianism to play a role in governing the country and
pacifying the world, and Confucianism would even become restless just like a
wandering soul. In fact, the Confucian doctrine has its independent value beyond the
political system. This is indicated in a fascinating dialogue in “Kong Zi Shi Jia” in Shi
Ji” (“Confucius knew his disciples were unhappy… I will be your assistant”) The story
is ingeniously conceived, Zi Gong, Yan Hui and Zi Lu were Confucius’ favorite
disciples represented the three Confucian virtues of “wisdom”, “benevolence” and
“courage” respectively. Among the different answers from the three disciples, Confucius
only agreed with Yan Hui, and even said that he was willing to drive a cart for a child of
Yan’s family who had made a fortune. Judging from Confucius’s pleased smile, there is
a kind of self- fulfilled value and independent dignity of the doctrine in the eyes of
Confucians, and there is no need for secular politics to make any judgment. In a sense,
whether or not the value of the doctrine can be carried forward is a problem of chance,
so people with high ideals should be content in poverty, devoted to things spiritual, and
wait for the opportunity to appear. Of course, waiting for the opportunity in
Confucianism refers more to the expectation grow in the political arena. However, in
addition to the public political sphere, there is the social domain in modern society as
well. Confucianism certainly involves in politics, but it does not need to be limited to
politics only. It can relate to social life more broadly and play a role in the promotion of
public communications.
4. Remove the Shackles and Dance Together
As for the success of the argument, Revival of Culture proves that historical culture
is an important platform for exchange (First Part), but it does not prove that the
historical culture in China or Confucianism must be a good communication platform
(Second Part). The culture discussed in the first part of the book refers to general
historical culture. No matter which nation or country it is, historical culture will be an
important basis for exchange. “Important” here does not mean that all the historical
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culture is good. If the specific content of a particular historical culture (or tradition) is
comparatively excellent, the historical culture will be a good starting point for further
communication, otherwise it will be unable to serve as a proper platform. In the second
part, though Deng Xize also deals with the feasibility of the revival of historical culture
and the task and strategy of the revival (Sections I and III in Chapter V), it still, in fact,
investigates the problem of the realization of cultural renaissance generally. Hence these
general discussions, the methods developed, and the conclusions drawn are universally
applicable. Although Revival of Culture cites some specific examples to demonstrate
the value of the Chinese historical culture, it is not enough. In order to prove that
Chinese historical culture is a good and effective communication platform for the
Chinese nation, it also needs to demonstrate what specific content of the historical
culture can become the important platform for public communication. Therefore, it also
involves another problem: Revival of Culture cannot prove that China’s historical
culture or Confucianism will in fact be revived. Today, Western culture still occupies a
powerful position and constantly gives input to China. Then, how much proportion does
Chinese historical culture occupy in the public life (and the private life) of the Chinese
nation can we say that the Chinese historical culture has been revived? Can we say that
the Chinese historical culture has been revived just by seeing that statues of Confucius
have been erected everywhere and that a few classical quotations such as “Do not do to
others what you do not want them to do to you” have been repeated constantly? Maybe
Deng Xize would defend it this way: as long as the historical culture is worthy of
renaissance and the positive value regarded by modern society has been revived, then
we might as well say that the Chinese historical culture has too been revived. If we
believe that eighty percent of the historical culture is dross and that twenty percent is
essential, then as long as the essential twenty percent is revived, it can also be said that
the historical culture is alive again. But the actual situation we are facing is that much of
the essential twenty percent has been buried.
Thus, Deng Xize’s approach of Public Confucianism cannot give a complete
answer to the renaissance of Chinese historical culture. According to this approach, we
seem to come to the conclusion: historical culture is important; we should cultivate a
kind of excellent and stable historical culture; and we should even develop a new
historical tradition to promote public communications. Therefore, public Confucianism
just does the basic work. If we want to promote the useful ideas of the historical culture
alone; to absorb the excellence of foreign cultures; to create an excellent new culture;
and to build a more stable, broad, and effective communication platform for the Chinese
nation, there is still some specific work to be done. Namely, it cannot be decided by one
person, since one person, whose capability is limited, cannot finish all of the work alone.
But there is reason to be optimistic that the approach of Public Confucianism developed
by Deng Xize has opened a new path for the Chinese nation to construct a superior
paradigm for public communication—a basic platform for the next step of work.
This review on Revival of Culture could stop here, but I want to make a further
brief point about the independence of culture. Cultural autonomy emphasizes cultural
independence. Meanwhile, just as the saying goes: “A bird is known by its song,” Deng
Xize’s concern for cultural autonomy and his brilliant exposition also reflect a kind of
independence—keeping independence in research. The independence in research is the
“independent personality and free spirit” shown by Chen Yinque. However, it is easy to
know but difficult to carry out, the same can be said of independence in research.
Academic independence not only requires a character that will not cave, but also a
who-but-me-can-do-it type of confidence as well as great foresight, which can break
through the cage of the present day and the past with an innovative spirit. Academic
independence leads Deng Xize to develop his distinctive approach of Public
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Confucianism. The uniqueness of this program can be summarized as follows. First, as
far as the relationship between ancient and modern times is concerned, the dimension of
public communication opens a new road, which is no longer limited to political pursuits
but can realize the aims of Confucianism to handling real world situations. Secondly, as
far as the relationship between China and the West is concerned, Public Confucianism
takes the rigorous analytic method used in the West as a reference and through the
analysis of basic problems of the cultural renaissance escapes the twin dilemmas of
using the Western concepts to interpret Chinese classics and using Chinese terms to
interpret Western culture. This builds a basic platform for exchange between the
Chinese culture and the Western culture, and casts off the attachment to the supposedly
“higher” status of western learning. Combining these two points together, we will
remove the shackles, regain the original value of the historical culture, and rebuild the
independence of the historical culture. From this perspective it is worth asking, is there
causal relationship between the academic independence and the culture independence?